Teneia, Now Heart Society, Chosen to Play for Cruise

It’s been a couple of months since we profiled Ben and Teneia Eichelberger, the musical husband-wife duo who call Fondren their home base when not on the road.

Since that time, they’ve been progressing on their new record, Wake The Queens.

We caught up with the road warriors (who are back in Mississippi – The Mississippi Museum of Art on October 19 and Rolling Fork – at the Great Delta Bear Affair on October 28) for an update on their fast-changing lives.

You have some big news?

Yes! We are so honored and flattered to have been selected for the 11th edition of Cayamo! The competition had about 300 entrants from around the US, and we were initially selected as one of ten semifinalists. After a public round of voting, we made it through to the final round of five contestants. Following the final round of voting, which was limited to booked cruise guests, we received an email around lunchtime on September 27th informing us we were one of three acts selected to perform on the cruise. We will join the likes of Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Patty Griffin, Lee Ann Womack, and Paul Thorn on the boat, and we are ecstatic about it! Cayamo sails out of New Orleans February 4th-11th, 2018.

What will life be like on the ship? Some entertaining, some R & R for yourselves?

Honestly, we have no idea! This will be the first cruise for either one of us. We do know that this is a music festival at sea, and we’ll be performing at least three times during the course of the week. One of the performances will be a collaboration set with another artist on Cayamo, and we’ll likely be playing songs and/or arrangements that are new to us. It’s all very exciting! As fun as it will be, we’re definitely considering this a “work-cation” because we’ll be performing, networking, and generally trying to learn as much as we can from all the songwriting legends on the ship. We’re also looking forward to seeing Belize and Mexico during the stops.

What else is new?

The other big news is a crowdfunding campaign we recently launched to complete our new female empowerment album, Wake the Queens.We are asking our fans to help us finish production, start manufacturing & distribution, and launch publicity efforts. Additionally, we are giving 10% of all contributions to Equality Now, an organization that fights for female equality worldwide. The public release date for the album is January 2018, but if you contribute to the campaign you’ll get Wake the Queens before Christmas. You can view the campaign here.

And if that’s not enough, a name change?

We are now officially Heart Society, having changed from our old name of Teneia. We wanted a name that reflected our mission of Love & Equality, without drawing attention to either one of us specifically. Our fans love the new name, and it is a perfect fit for us. We have so much gratitude that we get to do this for a living, and we can’t wait to reach more and more people with our music and message. These are exciting times for us, and we feel like the best is yet to come!